Sainz had to rebuild confidence in F1 sprint after “weird” practice crash

Sainz lost control of his Ferrari in the middle of the Ascari chicane, crashing head-on with the barriers, which damaged the front-end of his car.

Ferrari managed to repair his car in time for the afternoon’s sprint race, where he finished seventh, one place behind teammate Charles Leclerc.

It was Sainz’s third shunt in four races, forcing him to focus on rebuilding his confidence in the 18-lap race.

Explaining what happened in practice, he said: “It was a pretty heavy impact, so I was worried that the chassis was going to be damaged because the crash was very big. As you could see from the onboard, there was a lot of G, a lot of shock, a lot of impact, but the mechanics did an incredible job again. We changed both front suspensions, the brakes, everything, and I could get back out.

“Honestly, the confidence wasn’t that high after the crash. I lost the car in such a weir manner, in such an unexpected way, when I wasn’t even pushing, so the confidence then takes a big hit, but after that, in the Sprint race I took my time to rebuild the confidence, take it easy and little by little I managed to go on building the confidence that tomorrow will allow me to be more motivation.”

Sainz still remains unsure of what caused the crash.

“It’s a weird thing, it’s not the first time it happens with this car, with myself, Sainz added. “I’ve lost the rear of this car a couple of times, so there must be something going on that I’m not entirely feeling underneath me, but I’m still pushing, I’m still trying to be quick and the race definitely helped me rebuild the confidence to try and understand what’s going on.

“But in Turns 8, 9 and 10 I was very weak in the race, so I could feel I don’t have the car fully underneath me yet there.”

Leclerc’s sixth place was impressive given that he was feeling “dizzy” in the lead up to the sprint race.

“I was just feeling very, very dizzy and very bad in general,” Leclerc said. “I wasn’t feeling great, neither for the race, not 100 per cent but at the end, what was most important, is that I could deliver mu 100 per cent and that’s what we did as a team by finishing sixth and seventh, but starting fifth and sixth tomorrow so it’s all good.”